Boston Cream

CHAPTER 39

We came to the main foyer where all the bodies were. Frank knelt beside Victor and touched his cheek; placed two fingers against the side of his neck, feeling for the pulse he knew would not be there. Then he stuck his pistol in his waist and picked up Victor’s Uzi. “Fucking Victor,” he said.

Ryan put his hand on Frank’s shoulder. He shrugged it off. “He was the late mistake, born fifteen years after me, when my parents didn’t think they could still have kids. I was the oldest of six, so I practically raised him. I never should have brought him along. I don’t mean tonight, I mean the life, but it’s all he ever wanted. All he could do. He was useless at anything else. And not even so good at this.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was. But we had Jenn back; the gravity of other losses couldn’t hold me back.

“You have any burning need to take Daggett alive?” he said.

Ryan and I looked at each other. I said, “No.”

“Good. Let’s get him.”

“I’ll go out where he went out,” I said. “Come back in the side door. If he’s inside, that’s where he entered.”

“You actually see him go back in?” Frank said. “He could have made a run for the street.”

“And do what?” Ryan asked. “Hail a cab?”

“I don’t know, hijack a car?”

“Wouldn’t try that around here.”

“His knee is wrecked,” I said. “He was hobbling pretty badly. I don’t think he could have made it to the street.”

“Okay,” Frank said. “I don’t want to leave Victor. See if you can flush Daggett out. I’ll be here if he comes down either hallway.”

“I’ll check the offices,” Ryan said. “He could have made it into one of them.”

“Go in shotgun first.”

“Never mind me,” he said. “Don’t you try any humanitarian shit. No trying to wing him. Aim for the centre mass.”

“I know.”

I looked at both men. Frank’s face was grim and clouded over, his eyes black as wet stones. Ryan looked bright and alert, the hunter in him unleashed. We nodded at each other and went our separate ways.

I went out the garage door and made my way around the building to the side door. Now that I knew Jenn was safe, my head felt better than before. It hurt where Daggett had elbowed me, but I felt no nausea and my vision was clear. I had survived contact. I could do this. I opened the door slowly, sweeping the Colt barrel side to side, and went down the carpeted hall. I saw wet footprints ahead, but they faded after a few steps and told me no more. Portraits of company founders lined the walls: the first two generations that had built it up and the third that had run it into its present bankrupt state. A men’s room on my left, women’s on my right. I put an ear to each door and listened. Nothing. I eased the door to the men’s open and looked in the mirror over a pair of sinks. Nothing. Knelt down and looked into the stalls. Pushed open each door in case he was perched on a toilet. No one there. Same routine in the women’s. No one there either.

Back down the hall. No sound except my own feet rubbing against the grain of the carpet, my breath whistling through my nostrils, my heart beating a dull tattoo. The hallway took me back to the foyer; I knew I was getting close when I could smell gunpowder and coppery blood. I pressed myself against the wall as I got closer to the open space. I could see the man Victor had clubbed, lying beside his tipped chair. Then Victor himself, Frank standing over the body. His Uzi on the ground and behind him Sean Daggett, a gun pressed to the back of Frank’s head, his face twisted in an ugly sneer.

“That’s right,” he snarled. “I got your man. I know this place like none of you. He was looking the wrong way when I come up behind him. So what you gonna do, pal? Watch me blow his head off or lay down your gun?”

Just beyond him I saw Dante Ryan coming down the hall across the foyer. Daggett caught sight of him too, stepping back and pulling Frank with him so neither of us had a clear shot.

“You too, dago,” he said. “Lay it down.”

If we did, we were dead, all of us. And with our more powerful weapons, Daggett could storm Prep Room A and take out Jenn, Marc McConnell and everyone else. It would be a bloodbath, wholesale slaughter, and we all knew it.

“Don’t do it,” Frank said. “Shoot the fucker.”

Daggett said, “Shut up.”

Frank said, “Go to hell,” and bucked his hips back hard enough to force Daggett back, twist out of his grasp and throw himself forward. Daggett fired and blood sprayed up from Frank’s head and into the air as he fell face first. That was all Ryan and I needed. His shotgun bucked and blasted Daggett’s right shoulder and spun him toward me. Two three-round bursts from my Colt ripped his chest from lower right abdomen to left collarbone.

There was no need for more. His gun fell to the floor a second before he did. Ryan kept his shotgun levelled as he stalked over to him. I ran to Frank. Blood was streaming from his scalp and running down his neck. I dug my fingers into his carotid artery and felt a faint pulse like a faraway drum.

I said. “Grab his legs.”

“One sec.” Ryan put his shotgun down and knelt at Daggett’s side.

“Forget him,” I said. “He’s dead.”

Ryan took his Glock out of the shoulder holster and screwed on the suppressor. After the torrent of gunfire we had just unleashed, what could be the point of that?

“Dante. Now.”

“Shh.”

He stood, backed up a step and fired two shots into the centre of Daggett’s forehead, just missing getting hit by the spray. “Done.”

We got Frank to the surgeons in half a minute. Ryan ran to free Dr. Reimer from the trunk of Stayner’s car while the rest of the team started prepping Frank. Stayner told us to clear out, that the sterility of the room had already been compromised a thousand times over, but that he would do what he could, no guarantees. We retreated to the chapel. After the roar of shotguns and automatic fire, it was incredibly peaceful.

“Won’t someone call the police about all the shooting?” Marc McConnell asked.

“Maybe in your neighbourhood,” I said. “I believe the motto around here is, Don’t snitch. But if you’re worried about being found here, take off.”

“Not yet.”

“Honey,” Lesley said, “maybe we should. If the police do come, how would we explain this?”

“Soon,” he said.

We sat along the front pew facing the dais where ministers and family members would have delivered eulogies for the dead over the decades Halladay’s had been in business. With all the men who had died tonight, it seemed someone should have been up there speaking. But we just sat in the dim light, all of us wearing latex gloves as if we feared catching something from the very air. I had my arm around Jenn, holding her tightly. Ryan was on my other side. At one point he leaned in and whispered, “I can’t believe of the two of us, you got the centre mass.”

“Only because you hit his shoulder first. You made him a good target.”

“The shotgun jumped,” he said. “A Mossberg. I’m a little upset about that.”

He could dismiss it so easily. Not me. Brooding is a skill Jews learn early and perfect all their lives. I sat there soaking in the fact that I had killed again. And with a gun, again, the first time I had fired one at a man since that ambush in Hebron when I had shot the man stabbing my friend Roni. But I would change nothing of what had happened to Daggett. He was a murderer many times over. In the last few days alone he had ordered the killings of David, Carol-Ann, his own two thugs. Had caused the death of Victor and so nearly of Frank. Had tried to kill Ryan and me. Would have killed my best friend and partner in the most callous and gruesome way possible.

So why were my hands shaking? Why was my mouth so dry? Why was my head aching again, and from more than just Daggett’s elbow? I wished I had gelcaps. I tried stroking Jenn’s hair but with gloved hands there was too much static for it to be reassuring. For either of us. I went back to holding her shoulder.

“Hello?”

We all turned to see Jim Reimer in the chapel entrance, his mask lowered, an unperturbed look on his face.

“He’ll be all right,” Reimer said. “The bullet tore a furrow up the back of his scalp but caused no grievous damage.”

“A doctor who speaks English,” Ryan said.

“They teach that in Boston,” Reimer said. “We stitched the wound closed and gave him something for the pain and some antibiotics he needs to take until they’re gone. You may need to repeat that to him when he’s a little less groggy.”

We trooped out of the chapel and back to the makeshift surgery. Frank was lying on the table, his head bandaged, staring dully at the ceiling.

“You saved us,” I said to him.

He turned his eyes to me, struggling to bring me into focus. “Wasn’t trying to,” he said. “I just wanted one of you to get him.”

“We did.”

“Then I’m thanking you.”

“We all do,” Stayner said. “He put us through a nightmare. It went against everything we believe in.”

“So does your fee,” I said.

“I don’t know what you mean. I told you I give every cent of his money away.”

“I’m talking about the congressman’s money. The rabbi was getting a quarter-million,” I said. “I can’t believe you’d take less.”

His face coloured a moment, then he put his shoulders back and assumed the posture of the great surgeon who must never be questioned or second-guessed. “This is not the time for this. Everyone,” he said to his people, “start packing up.”

“No,” Marc McConnell said. He was behind me, the last one to have come into the room. And he was pointing his gun at Stayner.

“What are you doing, Marc?” Stayner asked.

“Be quiet. I want all of you behind the table. Now!”

There was no point in any of us drawing on him. In the crowded room, a crossfire would be deadly. Slowly we moved to the far side of the table where Frank lay.

“Get him off the table,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“We came here tonight to save my wife. And that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Marc,” Lesley said. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about her,” McConnell said, pointing the gun at Jenn. “Daggett was going to kill her, wasn’t he? He was going to take all her organs and sell them. Right?” He kept the gun trained on Jenn and looked at me. “Right?”

“Right.”

“I don’t want to kill her,” he said. “And I don’t want all her organs. Just the one. One kidney. She can live with one. Without it, Lesley is going to die.”

“You can’t do this,” Lesley said.

“Yes I can.” He swung the gun back at me and said, “Get him off the table or I’ll shoot your friend, I swear.”

“You do that, you’re dead,” Ryan said. “Before you get a second shot off.”

“I don’t care. If Lesley dies, I might as well too.”

“Marc, please,” his wife said. “This isn’t the way.”

“What is? To keep waiting for a phone call that never comes? To watch you get thinner and paler and weaker? Tired all the time, thirsty all the time. You’re still young, Les, you don’t deserve this.”

“No one does,” she said. “But what does that change?”

“Look at her,” he said, pointing at Jenn. “She’s probably never been sick a day in her life. From the time I first saw you, Les, first fell in love with you, you were battling. You were under ninety pounds before your lung transplant, remember?”

“Of course I do.”

“Lugging around that oxygen tank wherever we went. And then you got healthy again and you were the most beautiful woman in the world, and you still are, but look at you, honey, you’re dying again. Day by day, inch by inch, you’re slipping away from me and I can’t watch it happen again.”

“Put the gun down,” she said. “Before you hurt someone.”

“I can’t …”

“Put it down. We’ll find another way.”

“No.”

“Marc!” Her voice got harsher. “Put it down now.” Her hand reached out and snatched a scalpel from a tray covered in green cloth. She put its tip to the vein in her wrist and said, “I’ll cut myself open if you don’t.”

His eyes, already tearing, widened in disbelief. “No.”

“I’ll do it, Marc. I’d rather die right now than go slowly without you. With you locked up in jail for this.”

She pressed the scalpel harder. The skin around the tip went white as pearl. “Oh, God,” McConnell said, and his gun hand came down. Ryan stepped forward and took it from him.

I looked at Jenn, expecting to see relief, but she was looking at Lesley McConnell, her own eyes flooded. She said, “I’ll do it.”

At least three people in the room, me included, said, “What!”

“I want to do it,” she said.

I said, “Jenn, you can’t.”

“He’s right,” she said. “I’m a big strong farm girl from southern Ontario. Never been sick a day in my life. I’ve always taken it for granted and now I don’t.”

“You can’t decide this on the spot.”

“I was as good as dead an hour ago.”

“Ms.-God, I don’t even know your name,” Lesley said.

“Jenn Raudsepp.”

“Well, Ms. Raudsepp. Jenn. It’s an incredible thing for you to say, especially after what you’ve been through. But you can’t make a decision like this on the spur of the moment.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve had no time to think-”

“If I do I might change my mind.”

“Which is why you should.”

“If I may interrupt this noble gesture for a moment,” Stayner said. “What you’re contemplating is impossible anyway. We don’t know a thing about tissue or antigen matches. And this room is beyond non-sterile now. We’d be risking both of your lives.”

“Then I’ll come back to Boston,” Jenn said.

“You shouldn’t have to,” he said. “George Riklitis has already been found to be a perfect match for Mrs. McConnell, and has already agreed to be her donor. Only now we’ll arrange for it to be done at the hospital, Marc, totally above board, within the week. Your wife will get her kidney, I promise you. And the very best of aftercare. Beyond that, my advice as her doctor is to allow us all to pack up and get the fuck out of here.”

The McConnells left first; they had the most to lose if the place was raided. The congressman wouldn’t look at me or shake my hand, wouldn’t even look at Jenn, but Lesley threw her thin arms around Jenn and held her and whispered her thanks more than once before going off to change her clothes. I told McConnell to wipe down everything he and his wife might have touched.

Stayner left next, leaving his team to clean up without him. The rest of them got to work packing up their equipment. Ryan and I used alcohol wipes on all the surfaces of the locker room where Frank and the team members had changed.

When we were done, Ryan asked Jenn to stay with Frank and motioned me out into the hall. “How many are still alive?”

“Two,” I said. “The guy on the loading dock, Denny-”

“Don’t tell me his name.”

“And the one in the trunk.”

“We can’t leave them to talk to the cops.”

“They don’t strike me as big talkers.”

“With all these bodies, they’ll talk. The one with the leg, he knows your name, where you’re from. And I got a problem with that, since it could lead back to me. And I am not going to put my family at risk so two of Daggett’s fuckheads can come after them.”

“The guy on the dock only saw me with a mask on. And he never saw you.”

“Bet he still knows your name. Look, I did everything you asked, Jonah. I dropped everything and came down to help you. I stood with you. I fought with you to get Jenn back. I killed again. And again.” He pushed past me and went out toward the loading dock. I wouldn’t hear the silenced weapon from where I stood. But I knew the spitting sound would echo in my mind long after it died out.

Two nurses trudged out into the hall weighed down by large cases, followed by James Reimer and the anesthesiologist, similarly encumbered. I had to flatten against the wall to let them all pass. Then I saw Frank tottering out of the room, Jenn beside him with a hand at his back. He didn’t look steady but he was walking under his own steam, keeping one hand against the wall for support.

“What do we do with Victor?” he asked.

“He has to stay here.”

“No. No way.”

“Anywhere you take him, any hospital, any funeral home, you’d have to explain the gunshots.”

He gave me a long look, nothing moving in his face, before saying, “He’s my brother. I’m not leaving him here with the people who killed him.”

“Where would we take him?”

“Just get him in the car. I have a place.”

When Ryan came back in, his gun tucked away, he wouldn’t make eye contact with me. I told him Frank’s plan. He shrugged and said, “Fine.” We went back to the foyer and lifted Victor’s body by the wrists and ankles onto a spare bedsheet we’d found in the surgical suite. We carried him out and laid him gently into Riklitis’s trunk and eased it closed. Then I drove Frank and Jenn around to the front and parked well away from the building on the grass near the gate while Ryan went back inside Halladay’s once last time to carry out the final act of a grievous night.

He was gone about three minutes. Then he came jogging out, got into the passenger side and said, “All the chemicals in that place, we have about half a minute before it goes up.”

Go up it did, not much more than thirty seconds later, a fireball that topped about four storeys and ensured that firefighters, not police, would be the first responders. Fingerprints and forensic traces would be hard to collect, thanks to Ryan’s conjuring. No bodies would be identified until we were well out of the country. They would all be ashes, just like Harinder Patel and whoever else had run afoul of Sean Daggett.

To our surprise, the Charger was still in the lot of the cemetery where we had left it, neither ticketed nor towed. Jenn and I got in the front; Ryan took the wheel of Riklitis’s car and led the way back to Jamaica Pond, where we would help Frank slip Victor’s body into the cold black water stocked with all the fish he had named.